If you’ve been keeping up with the news about upcoming gacha games, you’ve likely already heard ofNeverness To Everness. This is an urban open-world gacha that allows you to move freely across the map and even drive your own cars. Yes, finally, a game that has added some form of fast travel without making it restricted to a region or character.
However, this game introduces so much more than that to the gacha genre, making the tussle to keep more players between such live-service games even more competitive. While the game still needs quite a bit of polishing, I’m excited for its official release because of these traits.
Everything mentioned in this listcomes from NTE’s Containment Test, and is subject to change.
7Freedom Of The Open World
You Can Go Anywhere And Do Anything
The time when I got heavily invested in the gacha genre was with Genshin Impact, much like the majority of the player base. Outside of the gacha itself, the main thing that hooked me was the massive open world that you could explore however you wanted. There were no invisible walls, andyou could climb on any cliff or building that you want, if you’re dedicated enough.
It’s important to mention that character mobility in Genshinwas a lot stricter during its early days, which made exploration more time-consuming.
Neverness To Everness has gone a step ahead from this and made the open worldso much more than just going to a certain location and collecting a chest. You can drive cars, get chased by the police, open your own store, and buy your own properties. Even when you’re out of content, there are so many reasons to log in to the game every day.
6The Main Story Is Quite Interactive
I Don’t Get Bored At All
There are two main arguments against questing in the current mainstream gacha games: the amount of time they take and the lack of movement, making it feel more like a visual novel. While I don’t mind the first point, the second is definitely something that has taken away my immersion since youjust sit there hearing dialogues for 15 minutes, move two inches, andthen enter another dialogue with the same-old expressions.
NTE solved this issue for me, and there’s not just one reason for that. Firstly, when you start the story, you’re bombarded with beautiful cutscenes. Furthermore, even when you’re in a normal dialogue, the characters are very expressive and you seeso many different expressions on them along with a switch-up in animations at times. These little things keep me hooked to the quest.
5Character Design Is Phenomenal
Because Isn’t That The Most Important Thing In A Gacha
Ever sinceI’ve been playing Wuthering Waves, I’ve realized that character design is one of the major things hooking me to a game. Nothing beats going through the main story and hearing a new voice, followed by a new character coming to the screen, and NTE has done a great job all around in this regard.
Not only do they have special cutscenes for a lot of character introductions,but there’s also so much detail put into each character. Just by seeing the current cast of the game, I can tell that I’ll have a hard time with the Gacha because I’ll want to pull for everyone.
4Important NPCs Actually Look Important
Finally, I Can Tell Who’s Who
I’ve done plenty of stories in gacha games, and the times when I’ve seen an NPC sacrifice themselves for the main character and then find another NPC that looks exactly the same are also plenty. Of course, games have gotten much better with these, but so far, most of them have only added an accessory or two to make the important NPCs look “different”.
Once again, NTE is far ahead in this case as they have unique NPC designs for important characters, to the point where you might think they’re playable. A few of these examples from the early story areNelly, Alphard’s assistant, and the novel writer that you meetin an anomaly case.
3The Graphics Look Incredible
Is This Really A Mobile Game?
This is something that I’m not going to compare with other games since you’d expect graphics to get better with time anyway. However, every time I play Neverness To Everness,I’m truly impressed by just how good some of these things look. The cutscenes feel like I’m watching an actual anime.
There are so many little things in the open world thatmake me wonder how this game will even perform on Mobile. However, it only gets better from here, and I’m excited to see how much better the game will look on its launch.
2The Unique Gacha System
You Can Play Monopoly?
Yes, the actual gacha percentages and chances to get the S-rank characters in NTE are similar to most competitive games while also being slightly better. However,I’m more impressed with the actual mechanicthat you take part in whenever you’re pulling for a character. While doing that, you can enter a Fair.
This Fair is essentially a monopoly board, and you roll a six-sided die for each pull. There’s a specific percentage chance of you getting a character with each roll, but there are also tiles on the board itself that can directly give you the character. There are even tiles where you can get up to five pulls back instantly.
1Anomalies Are Very Interesting
They Actually Feel Like Anomalies
The main story of Neverness To Everness is based around anomalies constantly appearing in the world, and you going over to locate the source and nullify it. With this being the center of the game’s world, it does quite a good job of portraying different anomalies. Sometimes it throws you in the fray with a hostile crosshair, while other times you find yourself in a maze.
While it was cool to look at, I alsohave to admit that it was difficult to understand what’s actually happening, but that issue can be fixed easily. Overall, I thoroughly enjoy hunting anomalies and it feels like I’m doing so much more than just reading dialogues on the screen.
